Aristide’s government in exile convenes the Miami business conference

On 22 July 1993, three weeks after Governors Island, Aristide’s government in exile organised the Haiti Government and Business Partnership Conference in Miami. Most of the roughly two hundred participants were members of the Haitian haute bourgeoisie, alongside foreign businesspeople with Haitian interests and United States officials. Dupuy makes this the hinge of his argument about the taming of the prophet. The mechanism was conditional restoration. Returning to office required the assent of the government that would carry him back and of the class that had financed his overthrow, and the price was a public commitment to a private-sector-led model. As Prime Minister Malval put it before the planned October return, the president had learned that the world was not divided cleanly between good and ugly, bourgeoisie on one side and masses on the other.